Hopkins 4K for Cancer

June 19, 2004

Kansas City, KS
Today we biked from Sweet Springs to Kansas City, Missouri. We left Sweet Springs very well fed because the Methodist Church members served us absolutely delicious cinnamon rolls in addition to lots of other yummy breakfast foods. I rode with Meredith and Tegan during our 75-mile journey. The day started out pretty well – it was fairly hilly but the weather was nice (not too hot and not too cold). A few days ago, the hills were really tough for me, so today I tried to just take each hill at a time and think of them with a positive attitude, so they were much better. Just a few miles before the lunch break, there was one short stretch of road where there was a lot of mud. Meredith made it through, but just before the mud ended, my bike slipped in the mud and I ended up falling. Tegan was behind me, and when she saw me fall, she braked and that caused her to also fall in the mud. I thought the situation was so funny and a little frustrating because I had come SO close to making it through the mud OK that I just sat in the mud for a few minutes. I couldn’t bring myself to get up. I was pretty much covered in mud all along my entire right side, and my bike was in the same condition. Tegan luckily didn’t get as muddied up. As we walked our bikes down the road, we saw other people ahead of us who were also walking their bikes. Apparently, the group in front of us was supposed to wait and tell us that we should just walk through the mud. They tried to radio us but we didn’t get the message. So we all walked down to a house whose owner kindly let us use his hose to wash our bikes and ourselves. We found out that Ben had also fallen in the mud, but when he fell he did a belly-flop and so he was covered in mud all down his front. After everyone got cleaned up, which took a while, we all headed over to have lunch at the house next door. The woman there was REALLY nice and she had the most adorable kids and a cute dog. Even though we were all still pretty muddy, she let us use her picnic table to eat on and also let us go into her house to use our bathroom. Then when we were leaving, she gave us loaves of bread that she had made herself!! We feasted on it the next morning for breakfast and it was sooooo good. It was all gone in less than 30 minutes. The rest of the day was thankfully mud-free and we arrived at the Grace Church of the Nazarene. Dan’s parents came to visit and his Mom brought an entire suitcase full of baked goods. They were extremely good – especially the butterscotch brownies and the oatmeal cookies! Most of us headed out to a Mexican restaurant and stuffed ourselves with food. Dan’s parents paid for our dinner, which was very, very nice of them. Thank you!!! A couple people left to pick up Katie, who will be joining us for the rest of the trip! YAY! It will be awesome having her back on the trip with us.